Part 1 here
Part 2 here
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That was enough for Kerr. He gave out his orders in a voice that was heard far above the noise of guns and everything else, it must have made all the Rebs within two miles of us think the Day of Judgement had come for sure. "Company-A, deploy as skirmishers, forward, double-quick, MARCH" and away they went.
I was always proud of old Company "A", but never more so than that day. With what a vim and snap they started into those woods, and they found lots of Rebs there too, but they lit out mighty quick when Bob Kerr with Company "A" got after them.
We had now gotten pretty near the Rebs' first line of works, which was a stone wall about a foot and a half high with a few rails on top of it. We were ordered to charge and went over it with a rush, driving the Rebs ahead of us like a flock of sheep.
Where I went over the wall a Reb had left his gun leaning up against the rails, and about a dozen cartridges lay on the stone wall. These I put in my blouse pocket, and grabbing the gun, I started on a run to catch up, thinking I at last was to have a chance to shoot back a few times, at least. It is so blamed aggravating to stand up and be shot at and not be able to return the fire, but I was destined to be disappointed, for I had gone but a short distance when the Colonel spied me with the gun. Again his sonorous voice rang out: "Throw away the gun, Sergeant, stick to your flag." Well, you bet, I was mad. I took the thing by the muzzle and wound it around a tree in good shape. I made a pair of twins of it in about two seconds.
As I turned around from the tree I spied a Reb lieutenant skulking off behind a rock. In our rush we had run right past him and he was now trying to get off among the trees to our right. I could run like a deer in those days, had lots of practice (We had been licked in every fight we had had up to that time and had to run) running while on battalion drill, and I went for the lieutenant like a western cyclone, and had nearly reached him when again my beloved Colonel's voice rang out: "Come back, Sergeant, let somebody go after him that's got a gun" and there I had just smashed a gun, and by his orders, too. But I came back, like the cat, and Charlie Thurber had the honor of capturing the blooming Reb, and he had a real live sword and pistol hung to him, too.
We drove the Rebs, that were in our front, a quarter of a mile or so through the woods on top of the hill. Then we came to a cleared space which was probably 500 yards wide, and here we ran up against a snag. For on the opposite side of this clearing the Rebs had build a "Rail Pen", as we boys called it. It was made by driving crotched sticks into the ground, then a rail or two was laid from one crotch to the next one, and then rails were laid slanting on these, one end resting on the ground and the other on the crotched rails. They had plenty of rails and laid them ten or twelve deep with the slant towards our side. They had left small openings for musketry between some of the rails and they made it very warm for us as soon as we left the cover of the trees, as they could lay under their rails and blaze away at us while we could only fire at their blooming rails with about one chance in a thousand of getting a bullet through the small openings.
The cleared space between us and the rail-pen was dish-shaped like a saucer. It sloped down a ways from our side, then flat, then up grade to the rail-pen. We halted in the woods at the edge of the clearing and blazed away at the rail-pen for quite a while, but I guess it was labor lost on our part, while the Rebs returned our fire and did some execution, although our boys took advantage of the trees and kept cover as well as they could. Finally Colonel Ely sent for our Brigade Commander, Colonel Moore, a German, and told him he must have some artillery.
I happened to be close enough to hear the conversation between him and Colonel Moore. The German contended that we could walk right over the rail-pen but our Colonel said No, and he carried his point so Colonel Moore sent up two 12 pond howitzers to Colonel Ely and Ely was happy then.
He had the arms placed in the centre of the woods and directed the firing himself. The very first shot made a hole through that rail-pen you could drive a horse through, and the Rebs rushed out like bees swarming out of a hive. This made a regular picnic for our boys and they improved it by all sending in their little lead pills, until the Rebs got sick and sought the cover of the rails again. Then the Howitzers made a new hole in the rails and the Rebs rushed out and then in again and so we kept it up for two to three hours.
At every shot we would hurrah and the Rebs would answer back with one of their defiant yells, but our boys could see that we were getting the best end of it all the time. As for me I could do no shooting, so had to make up for it in shouting, and you may be sure I had it out in that line. I think, actually, that I strained my voice a little, and it has not got back to its original tone to this day, June 20, 1898.
After a while Colonel Moore thought we had made so many openings in the rails we could charge them and go right through, so he ordered the charge and away we went, but there's where he made a mistake. The lay of the ground was such that the Rebs had a clean sweep at us from the time we left the woods until we got to the openings in the rail-pen and when we got there the Rebs were as thick around each hole as flies around a molasses barrel, so we could not get in and had to return to our first love, "the woods", leaving scores of our noble boys knocked out for keeps between the lines.
Then the Howitzers got in their fine work again and the boys peppered them when they broke cover until finally another charge was ordered and away we went again, clear up to the openings in the rail-pen but could not get in, the result being the same as charge number one. Then we commenced the same old game again; the Howitzers threw their inwards at 'em, our boys' muskets spit at 'em, we all hollered, and kept it up until about five o'clock P.M., when we were ordered to charge again, but this time the result was different.
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Part 4 here
Pat
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